Microsoft acknowledges Windows Phone 7.8 Live Tile issues

Microsoft has acknowledged the Windows Phone 7.8 Live Tile issues consumers have been experiencing. Developers have approached the company with reports that problems have been caused by the magic tiles, with a MSDN forum thread prompting a response from Mark Chamberlain, Microsoft Principal Developer Support Escalation.

Now, this isn't to say that an update has been confirmed to be well on the way to consumers, but we are aware of Microsoft halting the current rollout of Windows Phone 7.8. It was only the other days when Vodafone pointed at Microsoft as to the cause for the delay to its customers. It's looking increasingly likely that the halted release and Live Tile issues are part of the same picture.

Here's what Chamberlain had to say on the matter (consider it an official confirmation that the issue has been documented and looked into):

"An update: this issue has been recorded and the problem is understood. There are actually two issues:

Live tile causing continuous web requests (and side effects such as battery drain)

Live tile failing to update.

The fixes will be considered for inclusion in an update to the phone operating system. In the forum post above, several posters have been able to get around the problem by unpinning and repinning the live tiles. This might be a temporary workaround."

We've covered the problem with Live Tiles in Windows Phone 7.8 quite extensively. Heathcliff, a well-known name in the Windows Phone homebrew community, wrote up a piece on how the issue could be worse than previously believed, leading to increased battery drain and data usage, should a device become affected by the documented problem.

With Microsoft evidently delaying the rollout of Windows Phone 7.8, we can speculate that a fix is in the works to be applied to Windows Phones that have already received the update, as well as implemented into the release for those yet to receive it.

Am I the only one that have these issues? :
1* several times time Xbox-tile dont respont and I have to turn off and on the phone to make i work again.

2* Slow respont from several tiles, Most build-in apps like Marketplace, Picturehub and calendar. Before the update they opened when touching the Tile. Now it can take between 3-5 seconds before the App opens

3* Screen is about 20% less sensitiv. Often I have to touch the screen an ekstra time to get a reaction.
I have a Lumia 800 and I'm seriosly thinking about getting a Galaxy SIII.

What about the slowness of the live tiles? I.e I press a tile... Nothing happens... I press again... Wait... Then it loads. This happens with everything including IE, Me etc. At the very least there is a 1-2 second delay before anything happens. Pre 7.8 I never had that happen.

What about WPCentral app live tile not updating properly in 7.8? The only time that tile updates for me is when I restart the phone. After that it won't update until next reboot. Unpinning doesn't solve anything, deleting cache doesn't help either.

MS has a clear lack of leadership and an increasingly poor management which is starting to remind me of the GM that went bankrupt. If you ask me Apple is also starting to have the same problems. Management is not about consensus but about leadership, if local laws and tax laws make it hard to get the right staff, maybe it is time to relocate some development HQs to a place you can attract talent to! That place is not the US and its 50% death tax plus an exit tax! That is tax hell and the best people will not go there if they can avoid it!

@Lightmoonwolf, Microsoft is not a big office full of people trying to do everything all at once, each section has a different division, the windows phone division do not build windows, the xbox division do not code for phones, being busy with different projects is absolutely not how it works, windows phone guys go to work each day only to work with windows phone, not to clean the toilets when they have a minute

Maybe you need to think that Microsoft maybe is the one of the biggest software companys out there but probably they are working in many proyects , they have their hands full and another thing is that the people normally think is easy programing an OS but is not easy requires a lot of time , money and a really skillfull people . I think sometimes the costumer have to be a litle bit pacient 'cause is not easy and we don't know the hardships they have when they are programing .

Ugh...MS is slowly but surely marking each and every check box on my list of "$h!t that will drive me back to Android" list.
I originally came to WP7 for Zune Desktop type functionality. They don't have that anymore.
I wanted quick releases of software updates. That is not happening.
I dove into Windows 8 because I thought it would sync various things with my phone. This isn't happening because I don't have a WP8 device.
End rant.

The problem comes from the sended notifications of the tiles : no remote picture -> the tile works fine on 7.5 7.8 and 8 ... It's a ms bug, but their is a workaround by removing the pictures from the tile notification...

I have to wonder if this is the reason T-Mobile decided to skip on the update? Generally they are very good with timely updates etc such as with Portico, 7.5 etc. Glad they skipped it and I'm glad i didn't jump the gun on 7.8 yet. Il stick to 7.5 on my Radar for now.

Nope that's an issue with the app and also different hardware (WP8 vs WP7.x)... Try reinstalling it that may work or just give them feedback about the bug so they know about it and hopefully implement a fix in a later update. Is it the really small size or the medium size tile?

Do you really think MS is going to be in any hurry or apply resources to anything 7.x? We only only got 2 features as is when we should have gotten almost everything non-hardware related from WP8. They obviously put almost no effort into 7.8..

I used to work for At&t and pushed wp7 to all my customers. I love the WP platform, but it's getting to the point where I just can't keep saying "It'll be fixed" or "I'm sure we'll get that next update".
Yes the UI is great and I love the fluidity, but I convinced 4 of my family members who were on androids to switch over, and within a few months, their live tiles stopped working. This is after me trying to tell them that apps like Mint and Wells Fargo will be coming soon. It's difficult to compete when everyone else is using Galaxy s4's which honestly don't have the buggy usage that androids used to have and the Google UI has gone a great lengths.
It especially frustrates me that MSFT didn't care to update ie9 on wp7. As a web developer, I have to code for the lowest common denominator of users, and it's just a pain when MSFT continuously keeps holding everyone back. MSFT is not the MSFT of the old, and as much as Bill Gates was my idol growing up, I feel like MSFT has just grown into a corporate giant playing catch up in so many areas.

That they acknowledge. But they brush under the rug how the messed up on Xbox Music/Video & the fact that our "Other" memory storage will take up all your phone within 6 weeks? This is my THIRD phone reset to clear space (11gb used by other). Seriously, at least man the hell up and acknowledge this has been going on for seven years since the Zune, and tell us you have no intention of fixing it.

Yeah im also wondering. Acknowledge within weeks that live tiles in 7.8 don't work properly but keep silence about the fact that other takes up lots of space since the Zune period. Many people do believe they won't fix it because it has been so since the Zune media players...

when do you think they will get the update out.
I have a samsung focuc flash i677 and tried the seven 8 tool on windows 8 x64 but i pulled the cord as it seemed as if it did not get passed the backup... It went to the diag screen with phone and pc logos... i pulled the battery and did reformat and pluged it back in... it went off the backup i think as it reinstalled all my apps... i think i will just wait for the update or find if someone has ported android over.

Well, considering that it took them what, 6 months?, to develop this update (with enormous added functionality) and then another 1-2 months to realize it is broken, I suspect that we wont get any update before summer/fall (hopefully this year).
I suspect that they cannot do more than just "consider" an update as there's nobody left on the wp7 team. They moved them (probably it was just a single person left doing the coding, testing etc. for wp7.8) to other projects (wp8, blue, ...) after they had released 7.8 because they had planned to let it end there... (same thing had already happened after 7.5 until those stupid handset makers urged them to provide an update for the existing wp7 customers just to keep them happy -> that's how 7.8 was born)
Sorry for all the sarcasm.

Yeah...can someone tell me why it takes them half a year to fix MAJOR issues? I'm getting sick of this crap. They claimed they would be able to override the provides and push us updates. Well the MN with as many god damn problems as they have, there should be bi-monthly updates to fox all this crap.

I have an ipad mini which is I think the best computing device in the market, so getting iphone is kinda pointless for me :/
using lumia 900 and while it's good there's no wow factor in it, microsoft said it better in their ads "It's Time For a Phone to Saves us from our Phone" I don't see myself using it as much as I used my Desire Z or even blackberry.
@Cyruss1989: I like everything about the One but I like some features about touchwiz that makes me want to buy samsung more, like the smart stay and smart rotation :)

The more I think about it the more it seems 7.8 was a brilliant physcological ploy by MS. Even with as small, delayed, and limited as it is (only adding one tile size), the update still softended the blow of not getting WP8 by making us think "oh well, at least we get 7.8". Most of the news is on WP8 now and people aren't paying attention to whether or not 7.8 lives up to its promises.

That was a purposely done exaggeration... It most certainly is not the best possible advertising for the platform, if they make current users unhappy with these blunders... And therefore, people are more likely to change the OS.

My WP7.8 Samsung focus crashes hard if I
A) turn on bluetooth
B) Play music through bluetooth
C) Either fire up Binaural Beats or if someone calls me.
Sometimes, it reading a text locks it up.
Today, for the first time, it locked it so bad I have to hard-reset (as even pulling the battery and then powering it back on after still has the Samsung logo taunting me with no result )

Just wanted to chime in that I haven't had any of the issues Purge_GT mentioned. I use Bluetooth to stream music to the car, to receive/reply to SMS texts, and answer calls. It has worked without locking up. I did have the live tiles stop working the other day and a hard reset was needed to fix it.

Agreed. None of these issue on my Lumia 710. I still use the 710 to Bluetooth stream music, I have no issues. I might one day cut over to my 920, but my 710 just works. Its battery life is also awessooommee!

Me three. Works fine on my Focus S. Well, fine except for one tile. The ONLY tile that doesn't update properly for me is the WPCentral tile. Since the last app update, it won't refresh with the number of new articles like it did before.

Microsoft seems to be the slowest mobile platform developer in the universe. And their quality control seems to be leaking heavily - not the best possible strategy for a OS that is trying to get meaningful. Are you saying, that it is OK if they break 7.5 with a crappy update, and don't bother fixing it?

Because it will still kick around for a bit. Not everyone is on contract. My folks are on WP7 and probably will be for a few years. Hell the world still rocks on WindowsXP in some places. They need to leave it in a state that works.